This made me smile more than I expected. This did something for little me when I was twelve and realizing I was a boy in a body that wasn't me. I especially liked the cover and couldn't explain why. I returned to it twenty years later, curious and thinking it would have aged terribly and be awful. It wasn't! There was a touch of plot contrivance, but it was retracted later. Believable, I thought. There was an extended...thing...with Jake making noises like a drill because he can't speak clearly due to Novocain. Just carry a pen and paper, silly. Some interactions between him and Sumi could have been cut, but others...they both didn't age well but were also super current. Sumi herself was definitely a stereotype, and: you're telling me her English is shaky, yet she can understand someone who's slurring their words and having trouble speaking? No, Strasser. And she knows what an American carnival--okay, she could have seen it on TV. But--it didn't fit with how she talked and I call plot contrivance. The gender stuff, some of it is outdated but some, in some regions of the US, could definitely still happen today. Back in the 90s, this was probably intended as the height of comedy and not to be taken seriously, but I super did. Even now.. ( )

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